Want to be clear about why three commercial cheesemakers here have posted essentially the same message. I feel like we are not in any way trying to be discouraging. It would love, love, love for hand-made cheese to be served to people as part of a restaurant experience. And logically speaking, I feel like ample controls may be put into place to minimize any risks, both in cheese recipe design and making.
Where it breaks down is that logic does not necessarily coincide with the law. And because cheesecraft constitutes so much of our life, we spend a great deal of time and effort working within the regulatory framework and forming relationships with inspectors and administrators to 1) Make sure we let them know that we share a focus on food safety, that it's not antagonistic and 2) Make sure we elucidate our position as artisans, and that the practices we use are both safe and customary in smaller-scale cheese plants. When someone comes along bypassing the process, even with the best intentions, it kind of rubs us the wrong way, because we want to make sure that safety is maintained and that there's no consequence to us from someone who uses a more rogue or non-standard approach.
I've spoken about the sovereignty potential with our local WAPF leaders (puget sound), and the recommendation I made to them on the issue is that 1) It might be doable legally, hasn't been specifically tested in court 2) I do not feel like it is a good way forward philosophically. We should not be trying to figure out loopholes, but rather work as much as possible within the law, and then when the law interferes with our basic rights, then we should practice civil disobedience. We have 60+ years of learning about how to change culture and law, and fancy legal maneuvers have never prevailed.
At the same time, people should be able to exercise basic rights, such as the right to choose what to eat. Where the lines blur is when someone prepares food for the public. In this case, there are multiple considerations, including some framework to protect the public good.
I think there are many ways you can do this properly on the reservation, but they all require building a cheeseplant. For your scale, this is not very expensive. A portable one could be built to satisfy demand and sell to the public.
Way too much, I know. If you want someone to come out, there are about a few dozen people around the country I would say are very well-qualified to offer something very valuable (combination of technical expertise and great teaching style). But most of them are not very sympathetic to food service type of production. If you like, I can go through my contact list and help you with some names.
I don't know of any laws barring teaching.
There are for this, actually. Recall that the authoritative chain goes: county health dept, state health body, state dairy code, fed FDA, and fed health. Somewhere in there, multiple spoons are in the pot. However, most jurisdictions have a private event exemption.